Johnny Townsend: Trying to recover from all the damage caused by water pollution and carbon emissions and other toxins will cost the country a great deal more than the short-term profits waiting to be made now.

Unai Montes-Irueste: Regardless of whatever anyone else says, the President needs to use the last month of the campaign, and the final two debates, to explain why and how he put us on the right track. He’s got to do this, even if it means his likability takes a hit. Otherwise, Romney wins.

Cheryl Aichele: Occupiers feel LAPD has targeted them in attempt to silence their dissent and stop their actions. Courtroom witnesses have been threatened with arrest; while Occupiers have been arrested for chalk art and say they are victims of police misconduct.

Stephen Box: If there is a budget crisis in Los Angeles, it is because too many departments are protecting their siloed turf while the residents of LA wonder why it takes so many departments to change so few light bulbs.

Sheria Reid: Evidently, the right to defend oneself only applies to Zimmerman. Trayvon was followed by an adult male whom he did not know. For all he knew Zimmerman was a pedophile or a kidnapper or both.

Stephen Box: The City of LA is fast to find fault with its residents and slow to accept responsibility for its mistakes, a pattern that is demonstrated by its reluctance to put things in writing when it puts the City of LA in an unfavorable position.

But I remember him– every time a street person asks for money (I always give), when a man holds up a cardboard sign reading something like “Viet Nam vet. Will work for food,” when news stories cover veterans returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, struggling to cope with crippling injuries and PTSD.

So I went to the scene of the crime yesterday afternoon that left a teenage girl dead and a 30-year-old paraplegic arrested for murder. If I’d driven by too fast, I’d have missed the small makeshift memorial of candles and teddy bears that marked the spot where another Black person lost their life to senseless […]

Wellness

Carole Bartolotto: The problem with concluding that GMOs are safe is that the argument for their safety rests solely on animal studies. These studies are offered as evidence that the debate over GMOs is over. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Environmentalism

Walker Foley: Elected officials seem to think there’s only one side of this property rights argument. The people who live in these communities have rights too, but the oil companies seem to have the jump on [the politicians’] side of the fence.